Why did C-Style release this MV? Because they could, apparently. Why is the video the way it is? Because that’s how C-Style likes it, and when you have more a Twizzler holding your skeleton together rather than a normal human spine, the world caters to you. It’s why you can have a song that makes no sense be completely awesome while you dance around dressed as a bee, but like how a high schooler who needs to do something for Halloween would do it.
C-Style is great and everybody who doesn’t think that can eat farts.
Wake up! Grab a brush and put a little KAQRIYOTERROR in your face! Yes gang, now that things over at Codomomental HQ seem to have calmed down, they’re all a-flutter with the two-hour track previews again, this one KAQRIYOTERROR’s new(ish) regime taking on arguably the best song that the group’s ever done:
Well kick me in the neck and call me a bozo! I’d like to thank Cal for bringing this up in the Team chat and then starting a short conversation on vocaloid, which enabled me to surreptitiously make off with the song and be the one to tell you all about it, in so far as there’s really anything to say about it! But! Zsasz, who did not win Best Debut (Groups) in the Homicidols Best of 2019 but did get an okay number of votes, have a new track, so let’s listen to it.
Neat! And okay, it turns out that it’s “just” a cover of a previously existing Utsu-P number, but that’s fine, it was new to me and I’m sure many of you as recently as the moment that you read that phrase, so it’s all good. And it is good! And in scrolling through Zsasz’s feed I’m glad to see that they’re playing so many gigs but kind of wish they had more photos or something! Oh well!
It’s been a while since I did one of these — let’s see if I remember the formula.
I mentioned these upcoming solo songs from the … I was going to say “newbies” in Not Secured, Loose Ends, but it is now quite true that nobody is “new” anymore, per se, and that really only Komachi is truly a group veteran, so I say instead members of Not Secured, Loose Ends, which they’ll be employing in their nationwide one-man tour, and which had better include the recently-mysteriously absent Komachi, but that’s a topic for a post we hope to never have to write, so instead let’s listen to one of those songs, which is now available under the terms of what I like to call the Codomomental Special!
Two hours, yes, and that time is already dwindling, but this is Homicidols Dot Com and making archives accessible is something that I like to do, so: Continue reading →
The waning days of 2019 and opening week of 2020 have been a special time. Some of the greatest legacy acts and personalities of our time hang ’em up at last — the literal goddess of earth and sky herself even revealing that she’s been secretly married all this time — and with that saw the retirement from idol and return to solo work by the grand dame herself, Pour Lui, twice founder of BiS, mature member of BILLIE IDLE, from whose fecund mind sprang the cultural movement that created not just modern chika idol but about 95% of what we like to cover here. That Lui was going back to her roots as a solo musician (though still connected to the Watanabe/Matsukuma machine) felt like a nice coda, something natural. She was done with idol, and idol — graciously — was done with her.
New group with a familiar-sounding name. New auditions. New music. “It’s complicated” with WACK. Somebody stage an intervention for this woman! Continue reading →
We did it! Despite the very best efforts of the world to destroy humanity before the new decade was more than a few hours old, we got to the day when the full album of the fully rebooted BiS came to fruition with the MV that will lead it into the sales wars. And what an MV! Maybe you saw it during yesterday’s aborted leak. Maybe you saw enough that, when combined with the title, you had no choice but to think of certain late-90s punk touchstones and tributes to an aesthetic that never should have died. I don’t want to say that every little thing in it is completely deliberate, but come on. Just look at this:
Yep, that definitely hit all of the right notes. Maybe the only thing truly missing is one of the actors suddenly having their face twist into a horrifying hell rictus, or a lo-def shot inexplicably shaking and turning to convey wackiness or something. Otherwise, from colors to setting to styling to the exploitative use of little people in the guise of show business icons, I’m back in the waning years of rock music’s last best decade.
And the music? Well yeah, that’s good too. I think we all figured that’d be the case, right? Like, they got the less saucy stuff out of the way on the last album preview — given all the rest of their body of work so far, for BiS3 to drop anything less than an all-out punk barrage would be the biggest surprise of all. And yeah, all in all I do think that this album has shaped up to be the best by a group named BiS in quite a while, though we should wait for the official release just in case Watanabe decides to pull some shenanigans.
Ah, and now we reach the point in the promotional machine when a new release (specifically, a WACK release) is laid almost completely bare before the world and all of its details are known and we get to speculate wildly about what might fill the otherwise-empty informational crevices. Behold, the new BiS album, now more than just a bunch of stuff on Soundcloud:
A title! A track list! A … a cover that looks a lot like it’s really playing up an appropriate punk rock association while also trying very hard to avoid being sued by Green Day! Good lord, after these tracks, there’s just the one left to show off, and it could also be a Green Day reference if you’re willing to stretch a little, and I’m guessing that’s where the MV will come from, the only question really being when, it being a real shame that we’re still more than a month from the release date, I say again.
But let’s listen to the new songs, which you can also still download for a hot minute (I’m sorry!): Continue reading →
As very dutifully reported in a recent Weekender, among various other endeavors swirling around Wagamama Rakia, they had a new EP, and an acoustic one at that, heading for release. It hit streaming services on Christmas Day, but I only just got around to listening to it yesterday, and while doing so I thought that, you know, maybe this exactly how we should be closing things out for 2019 — stripped of the usual noise, the songs in this case give the members a chance to really showcase their talents, and the simpler renditions of popular standards gives the group’s work an interesting spin.
Anyway, put this on while you have about 20 minutes of stuff to do, and tell me that your experience isn’t improved by a factor of about 7,000:
To give this post extra heft, here’s their end-of-year message to fans:
You guys, I swear I was minding my own business this morning, and then along comes ol’ Viz Major to ruin things and inadvertently provide the lede:
@homicidols what do you think about some Poetrycore over some Yuyoyuppe production? (don’t think they label themselves “idols” though, just “girl group”, not sure 🤔)
What the hell was that! I thought he was making up this whole “poetrycore” business too (I can sympathize!) until I bothered with a minute’s worth of homework, but yes, it’s true, and so is the Yuyoyuppe thing, and while the complete lack of individual identities suggests that the lyrics and not-use of the I word in any of their press does suggest that this may not be an idol thing, they’re published on an idol label (for Spotify, at least) and sound idol, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and also me an opportunity to bring this wonderful injection of beautiful pain into your lives. Continue reading →
We haven’t had a whole lot to say about PassCode this year, gang, and frankly it makes me sad. I have a deep bias for Osaka’s loudest denizens, and I genuinely really loved their Clarity album even though I couldn’t get it past the Best Of censors and onto the final ballot. It is nonetheless right and good that we should at all times and in all places make a big deal out of PassCode-related things when those things are fun, and especially when they involve the masses doing a thing together to support their favorite loudols.
In this case, that thing is a, well, look at the title of this post, then watch this video, then go to the description and copy it and paste it into your favorite translation app (or use a browser extension like a fancy person!) and figure it out, jack!
Basically, you get the app, you record yourself shouting, and you enter into a worldwide(?) competition with lots and lots of other people, including members of PassCode, to see who’s got the goods and takes home … some kind of prize? I didn’t read that far, and frankly I happen to best like the idea of this being a competition entirely for respect, and that some random person in like Chile winds up being ranked first ahead of Yuna and then everybody high-fives them and laughs.
